I agree with you on all three points, for the most part. Loading time isn’t a real issue though, it’s just barely noticeable on our cable-modem connection. The test will come when their server is slammed soon after launch, however.

As for the discounts being more obvious, it should only be an issue for people who are just smart enough to realize your point, but aren’t so smart that they’d have no trouble checking their cookies to see if the one named ‘blastoffnetwork’ is present. (At least until they trust it.)

Hey, that gives me a great idea for a future post here. Thanks for mentioning that.

And as for the developers, yes, I know their back is to the whip right now. Perhaps I should reserve my resentment for the Blastoff executives who agreed for the developers on a launch date… Those guys need to step back and really take stock before they give us another launch date!

1st – Loading is slow. My computer on a high speed T-1 line still takes longer to load than my iGoogle homepage. This will need to be made more slick and quick for people to adopt as a homepage.

2nd – Link Reputation. Sending the whole PPL network online to promote a url or series of urls is a spam intitiative. I think the spam compliant portion has the most to deal with. For instance, I can take my link on my page for the mall, put it on a URL shortener and then load it into a auto-form generator and spam the living beans out of craigslist.

3rd – Visualized Discounts. For a couple stores I tested to buy something, the redirect just placed me at the store’s website with no mention of a discount or rebate from blastoff. Though there is a warning about checking for the discount or rebate before you buy, there isn’t a course of action to take if it is missing.

I’ve worked in launching socail networks and this is an ambitious effort and I feel for the developers. There’s never enough coffee!